Gabe Newell: Windows 8 is a Catastrophe

"Valve wouldn't exist if it weren't for the PC," he said, noting the crucial importance of "the openness of the platform". He went on, "I think there's a strong temptation to close the platform. If people look at what they can accomplish when they can limit competitors' access to their platform, they say, "Wow, that's really exciting." Even some of the people who have open platforms, like Microsoft, get really excited by the idea that Netflix has to pay them rent in order to be on the Internet.

"I don't think that's a very attractive future," said Newell, adding, "Now we have to start finding ways that we can continue to make sure there are open platforms.

"We're trying to make sure that Linux thrives," says Newell, who reckons that the lack of games is what's holding back the alternative PC operating system. "So we're going to continue working with the Linux distribution guys, shipping Steam, shipping our games, and making it as easy as possible for anybody who's engaged with us - putting their games on Steam and getting those running on Linux, as well. It's a hedging strategy," he said.

Newell went on to express his concern for a possibly closed future for Windows with the arrival of the new OS. "I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space," he declared.

"I think that we're going to lose some of the top-tier PC [original equipment manufacturers]. They'll exit the market. I think margins are going to be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that's true, it's going to be a good idea to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality."

I don't like the direction the new Windows is going in, i really dislike the Metro interface but having heard you can turn it off and use a standard set up like we are used to makes me slightly relived. I've heard from a few people that W8 is actually quite good so i'll reserve judgement until i have a few months of use with it.

Mind you, if this Linux support starts to support most of the games on Steam and gets decent driver support to be like Windows then Ubuntu will be my OS of choice from here on out.

I don't like the direction the new Windows is going in, i really dislike the Metro interface but having heard you can turn it off and use a standard set up like we are used to makes me slightly relived. I've heard from a few people that W8 is actually quite good so i'll reserve judgement until i have a few months of use with it.

Mind you, if this Linux support starts to support most of the games on Steam and gets decent driver support to be like Windows then Ubuntu will be my OS of choice from here on out.

An interesting reaction from Gabe...Did MS drop the ball on their latest OS?

Considering performance metrics, W8 is a significant improvement over W7.

Gabe Newell is full of $#@!.

Funny how most people overreact to a partial UI change.

This is the future of Windows (and to a lesser extent OSX) Do people really think MS will just scrap the whole metro thing if W8 is poorly received and go back to how things were with windows 7? No they will just revise metro to make it better with Windows 9.

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